Fear Agent: Whiskey & Space Cowboys
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on May 15, 2007 Sign up now!
by Laura Hudson, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 5/15/2007
After 11 issues and one trade paperback with Image Comics, Fear Agent, Rick Remender's whiskey-soaked space cowboy series, is making the move to Dark Horse Comics in June. Described by creator Remender as a sci-fi adventure series with "stones,"Fear Agent follows the exploits of Heath Huston, a space exterminator out for alien blood after a devastating invasion kills 80% of Earth's population. With movie prospects on the horizon and a slew of Fear Agent titles and trades on the way, it's going to be a big year for everyone's favorite alcoholic alien hunter at his new home.
Remender said he made the decision to switch the Fear Agent series to Dark Horse "for a few behind-the-scenes reasons, including film potential." After bringing Hellboy, Sin City and 300 to the big screen, Dark Horse has a strong track record for adapting its comic book properties to film. Although rumors of a Fear Agent movie abound, Remender said he can offer no further details "without being murdered by a dozen different people."
The switch to Dark Horse will also mean a transition from a single ongoing title to a series of four-issue story arcs, each numbered one though four. Remender hopes that the new format and numbering system will make it easier for new readers to approach the book, but adds that the ongoing numbering will also be preserved in a separate box on the cover, similar to the Dark Horse series Hellboy.
Artists Tony Moore and Jerome Opena will both continue working on the title, sharing drawing duties on alternating story arcs. The first miniseries, titled The Last Goodbye, kicks off on June 14 with Moore as the inaugural artist, pulling readers into the past for Huston's untold origin story and exploring the catastrophic invasion that gave birth to the Fear Agents.
For newer readers, Dark Horse is rereleasing the first Fear Agent trade paperback, Re-Ignition, on May 16, with the second trade paperback collection, My War, hitting shelves two weeks later on May 30. Remender also plans to team up with artist Eric Nguyen for a full-issue Tales of the Fear Agent backup story, currently slated to ship between the end of The Last Goodbye and the beginning of the second arc, Soulless.
There are more distant plans for a Tales of the Fear Agent book collection in January 2008, containing both the original backup stories from the ongoing series and seven or eight new installments from creators like C.B. Cebulski, Justin Grey, Rick Spears, Hilary Barta, Gerry Duggan and Greg Thompson.
Remender calls the new Dark Horse miniseries "as perfect a chance for new readers as we could orchestrate. I hope people who have been hearing the buzz but not yet jumped on the rocket ship will join Heath Huston on his drunken adventures."
